Free On a Highland Shore by Kathleen Givens

Margaret a sidelong glance. “Are ye still angry with Lachlan?”
    Margaret paused. Angry? There was not a word strong enough to describe what she felt for Lachlan. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Aye, I am still angry, Nell. I keep growing more angry.”
    “What will ye do?”
    “What would I like to do? I’d like to string him up by his toes and leave him to rot in the cellar. And bring Fiona in to join him.”
    “He’s apologized.”
    “Oh, aye. Words.”
    “What about the abbey?”
    “I dinna think I was meant for that life. No, I have to find a way to make Father and Mother change their minds. Or, failing that, find a way to have the contract revoked.” Margaret grinned. “What I’m going to have to do at court is find a man who will marry me and be an even better alliance than Lachlan. And then find one for ye.”
    “How will ye do that?”
    Margaret laughed. “I dinna ken yet. It’ll come to me.”
    Nell gave a whoop of delight. “Ye can do it!”
    “I will do it. Watch me and learn!”
     
    Margaret watched the sun rise from her perch outside the small shieling in which they’d spent the night, the dawn filling the sky with flaming color. She sighed as she watched it. They’d have rain before sunset. Could not this one day have dawned gray so their weather would be clear? She’d not slept well, tossing on the tiny cot she’d shared with Nell, then rising in the dark to sit outside, her cloak wrapped around her, while she thought. There was no solution but the ridiculous one she’d already come up with—of finding two men, of appropriate families and character, to whom she and Nell could be wed. She’d have a very short time in which to find them, for their visit was to last less than a fortnight. Her chances of success were poor. If she married Lachlan, she would fulfill her responsibility to the clan and to her family, but she’d never be happy. And she was afraid that she would be no happier if she lived her life in the abbey. And if Nell married Lachlan in her stead, she’d blame herself forever.
    She sighed again. She’d talk it over with Judith, the abbess at Brenmargon, whom she knew well. She’d been to the abbey before, had spent the night there several times while traveling and always enjoyed her visits. Judith, of English descent, was the cousin of one of Margaret’s father’s most trusted tacksmen, Rufus, who lived in the glen just south of Somerstrath. Rufus was a steadfast man, honorable, slow to anger, quick to ignore the exploits of his only child, Dagmar of the easy virtue and insatiable appetites. His cousin Judith was quiet, devout, and shrewd as they came.
    Judith and Rufus’s family had come north when the Normans invaded England a hundred years before, mixing their blood with the Scots but keeping their own names, and bringing with them a fierce priest who had, by his relentless efforts, done more to drive out the ways of the old Celtic Christian church than anyone in this part of Scotland. By the time he’d died priests were not allowed to marry and their sons did not inherit the post; bishops came from Glasgow and Edinburgh and Stirling and the ancient ways, the old religion that predated Christianity, had to be practiced secretly, or melded into the Christian tradition. Springs and burns that had had their own gods became wells of St. Bridget; banshees had become a form of Satan, or simply the wind. Trees were a manifestation of the divinity rather than spirits to be worshipped. Stories of giants who ruled the north were replaced with tales of Columba’s missionary works.
    And yet the old ways were not gone, despite all the efforts of the Church. The people still believed, and many of their habits had ancient roots. The pain of a woman in labor would be cut by placing a dirk under the bed. Herbs were sprinkled over the doorway to dissuade evil spirits from entering. A new father ran three times, following the sun’s path, around his home to